Liam Francis Gearon (BA, Hons, MA, MPhil, Cert He, PhD, FHEA, FRSA) is Associate Professor in the Department of Education, Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, Conjoint Professor at Newcastle University, Australia, and Visiting Professor at the Irish Centre for Catholic Studies, MIC, Limerick, Ireland.
Founder-Director of the Philosophy, Religion, Education Research Group, Liam is a specialist in the interdisciplinary study of religion in education, and has led the teaching of religious education at Oxford for a decade. With a published doctorate in English Literature nominated for the Canadian Governor General’s Award, for over two decades Liam has undertaken archival, empirical and theoretical scholarship and research at the interface of education with citizenship,human rights, literature, philosophy, political/ theology, postcolonial theory, religious studies, security and intelligence studies.
As Principal Investigator, he has led funded research projects with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, and the Society for Educational Studies, with a current co-investigator role with the Academy of Finland, a career total of funding exceeding £5,000,000, including a £4.5 million grant to establish a centre for citizenship and human rights at the University of Surrey Roehampton.
